January is well and truly here which means the cold weather is upon us! I’m sure your office heating is on constantly now but is it efficient?

As per the Carbon Trusts website, Energy is one of the largest controllable overheads in office buildings which means there are many opportunities to make savings. Reducing energy consumption not only saves money but improves working conditions which can increase staff productivity. Furthermore, the environment will benefit from reductions in energy use and carbon emissions which enhances corporate reputation

Well there goes another year and very quickly it did too! We are not going to lie though that 2019 was a tough year for Fulcher Edwards Ltd like many other small businesses. It came with way to many lows unfortunately, but we are hopeful that 2020 will be much better and with a lot less uncertainty surrounding the UK.

We can’t thank our customers enough for their instructions and support as they have really helped us to keep Fulcher Edwards going for another year. We have a loyal customer base and we really do believe that is because we offer a quality personable service as well as our accreditations such as NICEIC and Safecontractor.

If you are considering any electrical works or maintenance for your home or business this year then please support local businesses as by doing this you really are in most cases helping a family to pay their bills. Fulcher Edwards has been established since 1981 but at the end of the day it is still a family working very hard to keep it going.

Our electricians cover St. Albans, Watford, Radlett, Bushey, Hemel Hempstead and most of Hertfordshire and even London so please get in touch if you would like a free quotation. Our Contact Us form can be found on our blog or our website or if preferred you can call us on 01923 616985 or email info@fulcheredwards.co.uk

From all of us at Fulcher Edwards Ltd Happy New Year!

We would like to wish all our customers a safe and happy Christmas and make you aware of our shutdown period over the festive season.

Our office is closed from the afternoon of Monday 23rd December 2019 through to Thursday 2nd January 2020. Our office hours resume back to normal on Friday 3rd January 2020. Please note if you have works booked in over this period that they will still go ahead and one of our electricians will be with you as planned.

If we maintain your fire alarm system and you have an emergency call out over our shutdown period please call the emergency call out number on your fire alarm panel. Please leave a voicemail if no immediate answer and an electrician will call you back as soon as possible.

All enquiries will be responded to on our return on the 3rd January.

Traditional Christmas Tree lights lying on a wooden floor.

From all of us at Fulcher Edwards Ltd we would like to wish you a very Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

With just 5 days to go until Christmas Day, this is a third and final instalment of our blog post about electrical safety at Christmas.

We have covered the importance of checking your Christmas lights and when to use a registered electrician in St Albans, London or Hertfordshire like Fulcher Edwards Ltd. Another equally important thing to do over Christmas is testing your smoke alarm.

This is the time of year when you have more lights, candles, extensions leads and generally put your electrical system under more strain than normal. Your fire risk goes up unfortunately so therefore testing your smoke alarm has never been more important. The Fire and Rescue Service have very useful information on their website as below;

Maintaining your smoke alarm

To keep your smoke alarm in good working order, you should:

• test it once a month, by pressing the test button until the alarm sounds
• change the battery once a year (unless it’s a ten-year alarm)
• replace the whole unit every ten years
• clean your smoke alarm once every three months using the soft brush of your vacuum cleaner. This will ensure you remove any excess dust or insects.

You may see us use a hashtag on Instagram, Twitter and Facebook every Tuesday that says #testittuesday as we like to remind people like the rest of our industry of the importance of testing smoke alarms, fire alarms and emergency lighting. All of these things may help save a life! So a smoke alarm its not just for Christmas but something you should test all year round.

If you don’t have a smoke alarm or think you may need more than your local registered electrician can assist you with this. Fulcher Edwards Ltd installs Aico Alarms in our clients properties as they are one of the leading manufactuers.

We are NICEIC approved electrical contractors that cover St. Albans, Watford, Bushey, Radlett, Hemel Hempstead and most of Hertfordshire and even London, so why not get in touch with us for a free quotation by using the Contact Us form on our blog or website.

smoke detector of fire alarm in action, white background

This weeks blog post is following on from last weeks which was all about electrical safety at Christmas.

I think we can all agree that it is the prettiest time of the year with all the lights and decorations everywhere. However electrical safety is rarely thought about during the festivities and there is some scary statistics with christmas decorations and fires.

The NICEIC have shared a very helpful factsheet on their website which we are sharing with you on our blog. Last week was about Christmas lights and this weeks post is about outdoor lighting.

Outdoor Lighting

• Only purchase/use outside Christmas lights that have been specifically designed to be used outside. Always check the manufacturers instructions.
• All outside sockets that are used must have RCD protection for safety. An RCD (Residual Current Device) works by switching off the flow of electricity when a cable or flex is cut.
• Any fixed or permanent outside lighting should be installed by a registered electrician to ensure it complies with the appropriate safety standards.

Decorations

Fire and rescue services across the country regularly issue warnings about the increased potential for house fires around Christmas time.

Dry Christmas trees, cards, decorations and all candles are all potential hazards which provide a means of fire to spread in the home.

Keep decorations and cards away from fires and other heat sources such as light fittings, sockets and charging equipment.

We hope that you find some of these safety tips helpful to ensure you and your family have a safe Christmas.

If you are looking for a register electrician in St. Albans or anywhere in Herts or London then Fulcher Edwards can ensure the electrical safety of your home before Christmas. Or even if you just need the advice of electrician then Fulcher Edwards would be more than happy to help. Just give us a call or use the Contact Us Form.

You can also search for a registered electrical contractor in St Albans by visiting niceic.com or the electricalsafetyregsiter.com and typing in your postcode.

Believe it or not we are in December already! If you haven’t already, you may be thinking about getting your Christmas decorations down from the loft or out of the garage this weekend. We have already seen some lovely Christmas lights outside many homes and businesses in St. Albans. The Fulcher Edwards office is certainly ready! Without sounding like a Scrooge though, one thing that doesn’t always get taken into account with Christmas decorations is electrical safety.

The NICEIC have a Christmas Fact Sheet and safety information on their website which we are going to share with you over a few blog posts, as fires are most common this time of year due to electrical issues.

New research, commissioned by the UK’s leading regulatory body for electricians NICEIC and ELECSA has revealed some disturbing facts about the safety of UK homes at Christmas. As 90 percent of Brits admit to decorating their home and garden in the next few weeks, less than a quarter (23 percent) would consider the impact this might have on the electrics in their home. The study, which surveyed 2,000 UK tenants and homeowners, found that 42 percent of Brits paid more attention to aesthetics than safety, with 1 in 5 admitting to feeling they needed to compete with their friends and neighbours.

Inevitably, the increase in decorative lights require the use of multiple sockets and extension leads, yet less than 3 percent were concerned about the amount of lights they were using and whether they could be of danger to their family. Also these decorative lights put a lot of strain onto our electrical systems in our homes.

Christmas Lights

After being in the loft for 12 months, Christmas lights can become electrically unsafe. The following safety advice from the NICEIC Factsheet should ensure your lights are safe to use this Christmas.

• Check your Christmas lights are not broken or damaged before use and look out for loose wires.
• Use only replacement lamps of the same type and rating as those originally supplied with the lights.
• Always switch your lights off before you go to bed or go out.
• Keeps lights away from flammable decorations and materials can burn easily.
• Try to avoid using too many extensions leads or adapters.
• Never attempt to repair lights by using tape or joining with another set of lights.
• Check the wiring of the plug and make sure no bare wiring is visiable.

Did you know? 

Research carried out in 2011 by Home Accident Surveillance System 2012, estimated there to be 1,000 people visited A&E in the UK after home accidents involving Christmas trees and 350 people after home accidents involving Christmas Lights.

Carrying out these safety checks will certainly help reduce your risk of any accidents with your family or home do you get to enjoy Christmas the way it was intended.

If you have any queries then why not contact a registered electrician in St Albans, London or Hetforshire like Fulcher Edwards Ltd who should be able to assist with any queries you may have.

Next week we will cover outside Christmas Lighting from the NICEIC Christmas Factsheet. Until then we hope your days will be Merry and bright!

With winter truly on its way now, Fulcher Edwards Ltd have been installing more electric heaters for homes and businesses the last few weeks in St. Albans, London and surrounding areas. One thing we have had to make our customers aware is what type of heaters are now available, especially if they are replacing old ones.

From the 1^stJanuary 2018 the Lot 20 Regulations came into play which was one of the largest upheaval to the electric heating industry as it changed the amount of available products manufactures could sell. Under the new  Lot 20 legislation, all local space heaters for sale in the EU will have to adhere to these new rules or they can no longer be sold.

So, what does that Lot 20 mean for the consumer? Lot 20 was created so that all energy-using products would have a framework of basic requirements to make them as efficient and environmentally friendly as possible. When you consider the amount of energy we use on a daily basis, it’s easy to see why this legislation is so important.

Electric radiators, infrared heaters and panel heaters are all classed as ‘fixed electric local space heaters’, and they must have at least a 38% efficiency rating if they have a nominal heat output above 250W. Other electric heating solutions such as portable electric space heaters, storage heaters and heaters below 250W, have separate efficiency targets. Efficiency is determined by how many energy saving features a heater has now.

Which provided a helpful breakdown on their website with how compliance is now achieved with heaters available today under the new Regulations;

Portable heaters must have: Mechanic thermostat room temperature control as a minimum.

Optional additional energy saving features: Presence or open-window detection – the heater is equipped with an electronic device that automatically reduces the temperature when no person is detected in the room or if a window is open.

Remote control via an app – control temperature via a companion app on your phone or tablet  Adaptive start control.

This is not something our clients don’t need to worry about as our approved wholesalers and our electricians and staff at Fulcher Edwards know about Lot 20, therefore we can advise you of what is available now and what might be different from your existing heaters.

If you need any advise on a new electric heater installation or would like a free quotation then please get in touch via our online contact form on the website or on 01923 616985. If preferred our email address is info@fulcheredwards.co.uk

Fulcher Edwards Ltd carry out a lot of Electrical Installation Condition Reports aka EICR’s, EIC Report, Home Buyers Certificate, Landlords Test, Periodic Inspections in St. Albans & surrounding areas and usually after we send the EIC Report we have a lot of questions especially if it reads Unsatisfactory.

Depending on the size of the property will depend how big the report is but some can be quite a few pages long, especially for commercial premises. within your EIC Report there is an Observations and Recommendations Page, sometimes more than 1, that basically lists the items, descriptions and codes. Each observation has been allocated as appropriate a code which indicates to the person(s) responsible for the installation, the degree of urgency for remedial action.

At the bottom of each of these pages there is a description of codes which are as follows;

C1 – Danger Present – Risk of injury. Immediate remedial action required.

C2 – Potentially Dangerous – Urgent remedial action required.

C3 – Improvement Recommended.

FI – Further Investigation Required Without Delay.

If your EIC Report is deemed as Unsatisfactory then your chosen electrician in St Albans, London and Herfordshire will also send you a quotation for the remedial works for your consideration. Fulcher Edwards Ltd usually breaks the quote down into the relevant coding for ease for our customers.

We usually go through the recommended remedial works with our customers so they know what to expect so they can plan appropriately and they get us booked in as soon as they can.

We always advise our customers not to panic when they see a C1 or C2 on their EIC Report but to take it seriously and aim to get it rectified ASAP.

If you are considering an Electrical Installation Condition Report (EICR) and want to know more about what is involved with having one, or maybe you want to discuss an Report you have had carried out, then why not get in touch on 01923 616985 or info@fulcheredwards.co.uk and we can advise accordingly.

If you are responsible for a business premises and your staff within that premises, fire alarms are one of the best ways to keep people safe, and are a vital part of your health and safety strategy.  This includes almost all buildings, places and structures other than individual private homes. In fact, property and business owners are required by law to make sure premises reach required standards of fire safety.

Current UK fire alarm regulations state that all business premises must have ‘an appropriate fire detection system’. That means that if there’s a fire, there needs to be a way for that fire to be easily detected and for anyone in the building to be warned easily.

Here are our 5 top tips to consider when installing and maintaining a fire system in your business premises:

1. Make sure you have the correct type of fire alarm system. It sounds obvious, but you need to ensure it is the best fit for your premises anyone in the building. Not all areas will require the same level of protection.
2. Make sure you use a “competent person” to design, install, test and maintain your fire alarm system.
3. Keep maintenance a top priority. It’s extremely important that the system is maintained regularly and thoroughly to keep it in full working order.
4. Make sure your Fire Risk Assessment is current and fit for purpose, and you have an Emergency Plan in place.
5. Regularly review and refresh the fire alarm system, procedures and staff training.

There is also a complex system of grades and categories that state how your fire alarm should be constructed, installed, tested and which areas it should cover.  The best way for you to know what’s right for your property is to get advice from registered and Approved Electricians in St Albans and London.

Now Autumn is upon us and the evenings are drawing in, customer enquiries for security lighting in St. Albans has certainly gone up a notch.

Sometimes an area seems to be unlucky at certain times and you constantly keep hearing reports of break-in’s or attempted ones to peoples properties or vehicles. Unfortunately our lovely village Bricket Wood where we are based, is being targeted a fair bit at the moment with our  local facebook pages alerting people to these crimes. Though it’s unsettling, it is of course better to know so you can try to prevent it happening where possible.

A customer contacted us after being concerned and wanted us to advise and suggest some security lighting that would hopefully prevent their house being a target. Following a site visit by our estimator Michael to discuss their requirements and to give advice on what we would recommend, we emailed some photos of security lights we would recommend to see if this was what they had in mind. Once we knew what style was liked, a quotation was sent for our clients consideration.

The client kindly instructed us to carry out the works which we did this week, thankfully on one of the few ‘no rain’ days! We replaced some existing outside lighting and installed security lights with PIR sensors to the back and side of the house which worked nicely with the already existing front of house lighting.

A neighbour noticed our electrician carrying out the install and expressed how equally concerned with security they were also as their car had been broken into only the week before. Our estimator Michael will be meeting with them next week to discuss their requirements which may also involve CCTV.

Whatever your concerns, budget or type of property you have, Fulcher Edwards can discuss your requirements and offer advise to help you feel like your property is less of a target for potential burglars. We cover St. Albans and all most of Hertfordshire and London so why not get in touch for an no-obligation quotation. Contact us here via our website or on 01923 616985.